Copyright Notice

Top Research Universities Based on US News Data on PhD Programs

I haven't run one of these meta-analyses of US News reputation data on PhD programs in a number of years, but now that US News has conducted new surveys of natural science, humanities, and social science PhD programs over the last couple of years, I thought it might be amusing. The scoring system is the one used previously, though I've limited the survey to the Natural Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics), Social Sciences (Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology), and Humanities (English, History and Philosophy [from the PGR, of course]), excluding the professional schools and engineering, which not all schools offer.

The rank below is based on total score, followed by a breakdown of the total number of points due to natural science programs (NS), the total number of points due to social science & humanities programs (SSH), the number of fields in which the school ranked at least in the top 25, and the number of fields in which the school had a top five program.

1. Stanford University (51 total; 24 in NS, 27 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 12 top five programs)

2. University of California, Berkeley (49 total; 24 in NS, 25 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 10 top five programs)

3. Harvard University (47 total; 20 in NS, 27 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 10 top five programs)

4. Princeton University (42 total; 16 in NS, 26 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 7 top five programs)

5. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (37 total; 14 in NS, 23 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 5 top five programs)

6. Massachussetts Institute of Technology (36 total; 24 in NS, 12 in SSH, ranked in 10 of 13 fields, 7 top five programs)

6. Yale University (36 total; 13 in NS, 23 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 4 top five programs)

8. Columbia University (32 total; 14 in NS, 18 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 2 top five programs)

9. University of California, Los Angeles (30 total; 10 in NS, 20 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 1 top five program)

9. University of Chicago (30 total; 11 in NS, 19 in SSH, ranked in 12 of 13 fields, 3 top five programs)

11. Cornell University (25 total; 15 in NS, 10 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

11. University of Wisconsin, Madison (25 total; 10 in NS, 15 in SSH, ranked in 12 of 13 fields, 1 top five program)

13. California Institute of Technology (24 total; 21 in NS, 3 in SSH, ranked in 7 of 13 fields, 4 top five programs)

14. University of Texas, Austin (21 total; 12 in NS, 9 in SSH, ranked in all 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

15. University of Pennsylvania (20 total; 6 in NS, 14 in SSH, ranked in 10 of 13 fields, 1 top five program)

16. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (17 total; 11 in NS, 6 in SSH, ranked in 8 of 13 fields, 1 top five program)

17. Duke University (16 total; 4 in NS, 12 in SSH, ranked in 9 of 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

17. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (16 total; 2 in NS, 14 in SSH, ranked in 8 of 13 fields, 1 top five program)

19. Johns Hopkins University (14 total; 6 in NS, 8 in SSH, ranked in 9 of 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

19. New York University (14 total; 3 in NS, 11 in SSH, ranked in 7 of 13 fields, 1 top five program)

19. Northwestern University (14 total; 3 in NS, 11 in SSH, ranked in 7 of 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

Runners-Up:

University of California, San Diego (13 total; 6 in NS, 7 in SSH, ranked in 9 of 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (13 total; 4 in NS, 9 in SSH, ranked in 9 of 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

University of Washington, Seattle (11 total; 8 in NS, 3 in SSH, ranked in 7 of 13 fields, 0 top five programs)

Brown University (10 total; 4 in NS, 6 in SSH, ranked in 8 of 13 fields, 0 top five programs)